


Failing Grade

by IowaGuy1979



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Nihilism, very dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:27:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29256672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IowaGuy1979/pseuds/IowaGuy1979
Summary: Some points might possibly deducted, unfortunately.Inspired by Robert Heinlein's The Unpleasant Profession Of Jonathan Hoag.
Kudos: 3





	Failing Grade

“No, Max...You’re the only one who can.”

“Then I refuse! I.. I’ll find some way to save everyone!”

Chloe’s face turned from anguish, to a kind of clinical look. She sighed.

“...Not good. Not good at all. You were supposed to highlight the futility of human existence. Save the girl, and be haunted by the town you killed. Save the town, and be haunted by the girl you killed. Pathos like that makes for better quality.”

“Wh..what the fuck? What do you mean, Chloe?”

“I’m obviously not ‘Chloe’. She was a fiction, a disguise. My real name isn’t pronounceable by you things. Call me the Creator, if you must.”

“This isn’t funny, Chloe!”

The blunette rolled her eyes muttering, “Portions of the Creation not knowing they are Creations is paramount, yes, but, for once...”

“You did all of this? You’re some kind of God?”

“I suppose from your point of view, yes. It is a meaningless distinction, however.”

“This was all an experiment? My powers, the deaths?”

“Yes. The fact that no matter what you did, you couldn’t change anything, would have been a surprise for the Critics. So many other Creations are so...plain, so boring.”

“But, why be my best friend? All of the memories we shared? All of MY memories?”

“Because it was the best way to direct things, control them. Yes, introducing Chaos into things would give me a better grade, no doubt. But, this way was better. Those memories, like this ‘Chloe’, were fabrications.”

“So, all of the deaths, the pain.. It was all to give you, the Creator, a better… grade..?”

The thing that wore her best friend’s face rolled its eyes again. “Having to keep explaining things to you is so fucking, to use one of your words, exhausting. Fortunately, I’ll be able to start from scratch.”

“You mean… erasing me? Kate? Warren? Everyone?”

A sigh of frustration, and a nod.

“You can’t do this! Destroying so many lives, destroying my life! All for some goddamn, fucking, school project!”

“I Created all of this. Yes, I can. But, don’t worry. None of you will remember this. I suppose that I’ve grown rather fond of you, else I’d simply do it with no explanation.”

Max let out a scream of rage, of desolation. The Creator merely put its hand out, in a seeming mockery of Max’s powers.

She was surrounded by fierce, battering winds. “Where am I? What’s happening? I’m trapped in a storm? But, how did I get here? And, where is “here”? ’Wait there’s the lighthouse! I’ll be safe if I can make it there! Please let me make it there!’

As she reached the lighthouse, she beheld a terrible storm. “Holy shit!”

A boat, thrown by the storm, broke the lighthouse. Part of it began to topple onto Max. 

“Whoa! NO!!!”

Max was startled. ‘That was so surreal!’

“Alfred Hitchcock called film ‘little pieces of time’. But he could have been talking about photography, as he likely was.”

‘Okay’, Max thought, ‘I’m in class’

Stella’s pen hit the floor, and she reached down to grab it.

‘Everything’s cool. I’m OK’

“These pieces of time can frame us in our glory and our sorrow; from light to shadow; from color to chiaroscuro..”

It had been a dream. 

But why the fuck did she have an image of blue hair, and blue eyes, in her mind?

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is possibly the darkest fic I've written. Chloe doesn't turn against Max, in fear or anger.
> 
> Because Chloe doesn't exist, never had. And what she thinks is her best friend, is an intelligence to whom she is merely a thing. Giving a face to the force behind the events in the game.
> 
> Nothing like coming face to face with God, and having it view you as a brush stroke, to be painted over.
> 
> I hope you found this interesting, if very, very dark.


End file.
